xp_logs | Jishin Da!

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Nori, Laurie and Julio are about to go sightseeing when Julio suddenly realises why he's felt so sick.

Laurie knocked on the door to Julio's hotel room, almost vibrating with excitement. She loved Japan, and today Nori had promised to take them somewhere special, considering everyone else was out and about. Now she just had to collect Julio and head down to the lobby to meet her.

"Unh," came the response from inside. There was a shuffle and a bump, and then Julio opened the door. He looked awful. He was pale, and there were huge bags under his eyes. "Que?" he grunted.

Julio had been getting worse as the trip progressed. It couldn't have been something he ate. Except for the first night, everything he'd eaten had been cooked, and there were no shellfish. And yet, he was pale and sweaty and trembling slightly. And he had a massive headache. Nothing could cure it, not food nor painkillers. It felt like his head was in a vice.

Laurie took one look at him and frowned, stepping forward and placing the back of her hand against his forehead. "No fever," she murmured.

"No," Julio sighed, and wiped a hand against his forehead. He'd made the effort to get dressed this morning, since you didn't get many opportunities to go to another country. Especially not for him. Suddenly he pitched forward, hand gripping the doorframe. A wave of pain and dizziness rolled through him. Almost like...

The hotel shuddered slightly.

The tremor was small but noticeable. Noticeable, that is, if you didn't live with little shakes like that as simply part of your normal life. Noriko didn't even really process that anything had happened, despite the magnification of the effect which came of being so high up in the hotel. Instead she simply continued down the hall, practically vibrating with energy (partly from the chance to show her friends one of her favorite parts of town, but mostly because, even with Forge's gauntlets, there was a lot more energy out here than in Westchester). "Ara!" she called out as she saw Julio and Laurie in the hall. "Let's going!"

Now Julio knew why this feeling was so familiar. He'd felt it once, very briefly. Right before he destroyed San Diego. He had been feeling it since he stepped off the plane, but since he had only ever been in New York since his initial manifestation, and he'd been unable to put a name on it. It was a fault line, on the verge of rupturing. And the people of Tokyo were walking above it, completely blissfully unaware that it was going to happen today.

"We need to go," Julio said, pulling himself upright. If it was possible, he was even paler. "Right now."

Laurie grabbed his arm, almost instinctively to make sure he didn't stumble, wondering what the hell was going on. "Julio?" she questioned, but started moving with him down the hall anyhow. She'd learnt to trust her friends, and their instincts.

Nori was not the most observant at the best of times, which this definitely wasn't. She didn't even pick up on Julio's strange behavior, simply nodded. "Hai. Julio is that's right! Let's going now." Because standing in the hall was not moving and not moving was hard. Motion. Burn off the energy. Keep going, because there really wasn't another option.

Julio gasped as another wave hit him, and he fell to one knee. The hotel shook, even more violently this time. He clutched at Laurie and tried to pull himself to his feet. This one didn't quite have the power of the San Diego faultline, but there were millions more people living above it.

"We have to get out of the city, now." he said, panting. "There's going to be a very very large earthquake if we don't."

"Oh crap," Laurie said, wrapping an arm around Julio's waste and helping him to his feet. "Nori, tell me you know where to get fast transportation."

"Eh?" That earthquake Noriko had noticed, but Julio's reaction worried her more than the shaking by far. "Is ok. Is jishin. Normal." Turning to Laurie she frowned. "Train station is two blocks," she added, somewhat confused. They'd been using the trains and subways to get around the whole time they'd been here, surely Laurie knew that. But... she'd said 'fast'. "Shinkansen?" she offered hesitantly.

"What's Shinkansen?" Laurie asked, frowning as she tried to hold up under Julio's weight. He was _heavy_, and she changed position, trying to find a more stable hold.

The ground underneath them trembled again. I'm not causing this, Julio thought, almost giddily as the girls helped him into the elevator and out through the lobby. It's doing this all on it's own. Julio squeezed his eyes shut. Stop, he told it. Stop.

The faint tremors ceased. Julio's head ached with the effort.

"Shinkansen wa..." Noriko knew there was an English phrase for it, but she couldn't remember. The worry and tension in Laurie and Julio's bodies had dampened some of Nori's bouncing, and she clamped her hands behind her back to control them as she worked to find a way to explain. "If we is go to Kyoto, is take Shinkansen. Is most fast train. Most money train."

People were giving them strange looks already but Laurie wasn't sure if that was because of Julio or because they were gaijin. She had her wallet with her, and had some money but she didn't have hundreds of dollars if this was some form of luxury train.

Julio wasn't paying attention to either of the girls, he was fixated on stopping the earthquake. There was a lot of power there, and he didn't think he could keep it all in the same place. It had to go somewhere. Could he bleed it off somewhere underground? He pulled back a little on his control, and the ground shuddered again.

No, bad idea. It was all or nothing. He didn't have enough experience with an active fault to work with it. But had to do something quick. The edges of his vision were going grey, and a few splatters on the concrete told him his nose was bleeding.

Noriko had turned back to check on the two following her, and her eyes widened as she took in the blood dripping from his nose. Somehow, she thought it wasn't because he was having ecchi thoughts like the manga all claimed. "Julio is sick?" she asked Laurie, concerned. "Is hospital?"

Laurie looked over at Julio, noticing the blood finally. That, and sweat she could feel against her skin where she held him, soaking through the shirt he wore, told her something very bad was going on. She wasn't sure what to do though, he'd told them to get him out of the city.

"No, no hospital. We have to get out, as far away from the city as we can," Laurie replied, tightening her grip on Julio, and dragging him along. "I can call Professor Xavier when we're out."

She felt guilty about abandoning protocol but there wouldn't be anything they could do even if she did call them right now. She didn't think more people were what they needed, not if this Earthquake hit as Julio had said.

"It won't do any good," Julio grated. "This earthquake, it is not me. It will happen even if I leave." He looked around them, the huge buildings that blocked the morning sun. The passers-by who gave them all a wide berth. So many people were in this city full of concrete and glass. So many that could be killed.

"I don't know what to do," he said, helplessly. "I can't stop it, I'm not strong enough."

Getting out of the city would definitely mean a train, Nori knew, but it really wasn't as easy as it sounded - Tokyo proper was small, size wise, for a major city, but the metro area continued for dozens of miles inland. She still didn't really understand the problem, either. "Jishin... earthquake is Tokyo always. All Japan is earthquake many. Small earthquake not problem..." Although that last tremor hadn't exactly felt small. "Is Julio can small jishin?"

"No, no is not small," Julio said, shaking his head violently. "It is big, very very fucking big," he grunted as another wave ripped through him, and the ground shook. Several of the passers-by exclaimed as they were knocked off-balance. They didn't have time for this. Julio tried to remember things from his studies.

"Mira, Kobe earthquake, right? Ten years ago? Like that. But bigger," he swiped at his nose, blood smearing along his sleeve. "Much fucking bigger. So we either get the fuck out of here, or I keep fucking holding onto it until my fucking head explodes all over this fucking sidewalk."

It was the most he had ever cussed in English in a single sentence. Kyle would have been proud.

"Can you run if I keep you upright?" Laurie asked, giving Julio a critical look. She still had her arm around his waist, although she'd lent away a bit at the burst of cussing. She hadn't ever really hurt Julio swear before, it was somewhat shocking.

Nori's eyes widened as she stared at Julio. She'd seen the pictures from Kobe. "But... Julio is stop?"

"I... I don't know," Julio said again. He pushed away from Laurie. They couldn't outrun this, he couldn't. He looked at his hands, they were shaking, and he noticed little ripples around them. He was bleeding off the power without even ...

"Hang on," he said. "I think I just got a really stupid idea. The power, it goes through me, like a ...como se ...conduit. I could send it somewhere else."

"But where?" Laurie asked, having stepped away slightly. She couldn't see anywhere that wasn't teeming with people currently.

The obvious answer was out to sea, where there were no people, but no child could grow up in Japan and not know the danger of tsunami, particularly not after the one three Christmases ago. "Kita," Noriko said. "Anou... North. Is hatake... rice... eh farm! Many farm. Not people. Not... biru..." She pointed to the skyscrapers surrounding them.

Julio shook his head. "No, the power, I have no idea how far it will go, who is to say it won't hit Korea or something?" He swiped at his nose again. A dark red stain was starting to spread on the front of his shirt, and he was drenched in sweat and shaking. He followed Nori's finger up to the skyscrapers, and then further up to the sky. "Unless I just, let it go up..." The ground shook again, violently. It threw Julio and the girls to the ground.

"And we have no more time to argue," he panted, climbing to his feet. "Get me to a clear space?"

Laurie climbed to her feet, and reached out her hand to Nori to pull her up as well. Time for them to find a clear space then, if there was such a thing in this city.

With that last shock wave, the people around them were starting to react - it wasn't panic in the streets but it wasn't far off. The people of Tokyo had lived with minor earthquakes all their lives, and knew what they felt like. And they knew damned well that the city, despite being on a major fault line, was not built to deal with a large earthquake. Experts had been telling them for years that when the Big One hit it would be worse than Kobe and it wasn't that people weren't listening, it was just that there wasn't much that could be done about it at this point. Now people were racing down the streets, headed for whatever safety and shelter they could think of.

"Space... space..." It took Noriko a few seconds to regather her wits enough to remember the English word. "Ah! Koen... Park! Asoko!" And she set off down the street towards one of the small, neighborhood green areas which was a few blocks away.

Julio pushed off of the wall he was leaning against and followed her, as quickly as he could. He didn't feel like his head was attached to his body, and the rest of the world was starting to fade away as he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and the thick, all-consuming pain in his head.

It wasn't a long way to the park, but with Julio they weren't going very fast. "Is come, come," she urged them on. Although at least most of the crowd was going the other way.

Laurie grabbed Julio's arm again as they moved, trying to give him support even if she couldn't give him any physical help. She wasn't used to using her powers on the move and she didn't want to do anything that might have an alternative effect on him right now.

A small part of Julio's brain was whispering that they should probably contact the adults, but the rest of him reminded that part of the brain that that meant a) waiting for the adults to arrive and b) having them come to a decision on what to do. And there simply wasn't time. They needed to act.

It wasn't very impressive, as parks go - only about half the size of an average city block in America - but it had a pair of swings and a jungle gym, and a patch of greenery. It also had a slide in the shape of a large pink octopus. Noriko seemed to take this fully in stride as she spun around, bouncing in place as she looked worriedly at Julio. "What now?" Laurie asked, noting Nori's bouncing with raised eyebrows but stopped herself from saying anything. Who was she to say anything about how other people dealt with tense situations?

"Now," Julio said, "now you stand back." He pushed away from Laurie and staggered into an open space. He checked to see if there was anyone nearby, before looking up at the sky. There was no guarantee that this would work. He could cause another giant earthquake, or he could die in the attempt. But right now, he didn't quite care. It didn't matter, not if he could prevent another San Diego. He pulled the power towards him, trembling with effort, there was a lot, and he hoped his body could hold it long enough for him to redirect it. For the first time in over a year, he whispered a quiet prayer.

Then he raised his arms to the heavens, and let go. For a moment, there was absolute stillness, not even the birds were cheeping in the trees nearby. The air around Julio changed, rippling around him like he was in a wind tunnel. Then there was a deafening roar as the power slammed upward.

Laurie had placed her hands over her ears as soon as the roar began, eyes wide as she felt the air sucking at her clothing as it swirled around Julio only a few meters away. She had heard about San Diego, and had read about it in the X-men files as part of her trainee reading but she hadn't really known what it must have been like.

She wondered if the same thing was going to happen here, if Julio lost control...She felt her hand reaching for Nori's, seeking comfort from the nearest human being as she watched Julio pour out power into the air above them. God, she hoped he didn't lose control. Noriko stared up at the lashing branches of the trees where she could make out the passage of the power waves, even though they weren't visible in the strictest sense of the word. In her eyes this was the ultimate expression of the control Julio had once chided her for not having - this controlled, safe (or at least safer than the alternative) release of power and her glance flickered down to the winking lights on her bracers before she squeezed Laurie's hand.

It hurt, and this surprised Julio. Using his power never hurt before. His hands shook as he tried to keep his power focused upwards. The power bled off from the faultline and through him went up, out and up towards the sky where it could harm no one. But oh God, did it hurt. He felt like his heart was going to explode in his chest. The boy wasn't even aware that he had dropped to one knee at this point, he just kept focusing, trying to keep the power up and out.

Laurie watched Julio fall to one knee, her heart jumping in her chest as she realized he might not be able to take it all. But maybe...She let go of Nori's hand, stepping forward against the swirl of wind, forcing her way through the invisible vortex to Julio's side. Even though she couldn't take the burden from him, she could at least make it easier to bear. She grabbed him around the waist, pulling upwards as she concentrated on energy and life.

Julio shuddered as a sudden burst of adrenaline coursed through his circulatory system. He could barely feel Laurie holding him up, and his whole body shook from the combination of the hormones and his own power. His heart twisted painfully in his chest, but he could feel the bleed from the faultline start to abate. The ripples soon ceased, and then there was nothing but the sound of Julio's own harsh breathing in his ears.

Holy shit, I think I did it, he thought to himself as his vision started to go black. He fell to the ground like a dead weight. His eyelids fluttered briefly, and then he stopped breathing. His heart giving out under the weight of all of the power his body had just processed.

Laurie felt Julio sag in her arms, almost dropping him as he grew too heavy to hold but managing to turn it into a controlled drop as she lay him down. "Julio?" she said, noticing the paleness of his skin.

The noise and motion had stopped and Noriko had been about to cheer when she saw Julio collapse. She'd seen enough people passed out at parties and what have you and her cheer turned into a gasp of concern. "Julio?" Nori darted forward to crouch down next to him on the ground. "Is Julio ok?" She shot Laurie a worried look. "Laurie is hospital job..."

Laurie felt for a pulse, and clamped down on the panicked feeling when she didn't find one. She couldn't fall to bits right now, Julio needed her. Looking at Nori, she shook her head. "We don't have time, I'm going to need to do something now. Do you know CPR?"

Not waiting for a response, she started the fundamentals, tilting his head back into the correct position and then placing her hands against his chest and pushing them up and down, pausing the motion every so often to breathe into his mouth.

Noriko couldn't understand - with the pressure Laurie was speaking faster than usual and Nori couldn't focus - the English all was getting garbled in her head. But the motions she recognized, although she'd never been properly trained. "Shiranai, shiranai..." she whispered, shaking her head. Frightened and frustrated, she raked her fingers through her hair, not even realizing that her control had slipped far enough to leave it sticking up every which way in an excess of static. "Is not know."

Laurie's eyes flicked to Nori for a moment before going back to the CPR, counting off the breathes she puffed into Julio's lungs, before going back to his chest. CPR wasn't enough though, it was the thing that they'd been told when they first learnt it. That you needed a defibrillator as well as CPR to really bring someone's heartbeat back, but where would she find one of those out here? It was then that her mind focused back on Nori, and Nori's power.

"Nori?" Laurie said. "Nori, your power, you can give someone an electric charge, right? Um...zap!" Laurie said, motioning to Julio's chest as she went back to the breathing.

Noriko's eyes widened as she caught Laurie's meaning and her first instinct was to back away - she couldn't, she didn't know how, it was too hard. But then she looked at Julio's face, the skin going waxy, and she bit her lip. Certainly she had enough power - she'd been red-lining the allowed absorption of the bracers every day since she got back to Tokyo there was so much ambient power. The question was, did she have the control? Too much power would be worse than not enough.

She concentrated on remembering what Mr. Summers had been teaching her in her powers sessions, feeling the energy in her system and knowing it was too much. Her control wasn't good enough, not when there was this much buzz. "Is wait," she told Laurie tersely, standing and moving to a clear patch of dirt. She didn't want to do this out of the danger room, hated the idea intensely, but there wasn't any choice. She needed to get grounded.

Laurie moved to give Julio a few more breaths of air before moving away to give Nori enough room. She didn't want to get electrocuted herself and she could give Nori instruction on where to place her hands from a little ways back.

"You've got to place your hands like they do with a normal defibrillator when you shock him," she said, hoping Nori would understand what she was saying.

As Laurie gave Julio his last few breaths, Noriko placed her palms flat on the dirt and shoved outward, draining off most of the stored power in one bright flash which charred the grass and melted the sand in the dirt. She swayed slight as she stood up, but suddenly her mind was much clearer than it had been since leaving New York. Moving quickly back to Julio's side, she flipped her mind through what she understood of what Laurie said, then carefully set her hands on Julio's chest. "Is right?" she asked and, when she got Laurie's confirming nod, took a deep breath. "Hai. Ichi... ni... san!" The short, controlled blast of power surged from her palms and into Julio.

The boy jerked, and with the shock from Nori's power, his heart began to beat again. He coughed and gagged, lungs suddenly demanding air. He coughed a second time, and then rolled protectively on his side. Laurie immediately leaned forward, placing a hand against his shoulder, and brushing his hair off his face to keep it out of his mouth as he coughed. "Julio, you did it. You stopped the Earthquake."

She could feel the panic still somewhat close but Julio was safe, and so was all of Tokyo and those facts were enough to let her push it down and away, swearing she'd fall apart later, after they were all back at the hotel and in their rooms.

Noriko, on the other hand, was pretty close to falling apart now. Only the almost complete lack of spare charge built up and the clarity of mind that it provided gave her strength enough to stand up and move away from Julio, rather than collapse, sobbing in relief. Wrapping her arms around herself, she watched Laurie and Julio from a few steps away, eyes wide in her face.

Julio didn't say anything. While he wasn't exactly unconscious, he was too tired to move. He drifted off, listening to the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, and the quiet slow rumble of the Tokyo faultline, now thankfully dormant for the next few hundred years or so.

Laurie smiled as she noticed that he seemed to have fallen asleep. They were going to have to call Professor Xavier and get someone to come and get them. There was no way she'd be able to carry Julio and he was going to need to be checked over by a doctor to make sure everything was okay. She brushed a hand gently over his hair one last time before turning to face Nori...

"Nori?" she asked softly, finally noticing how freaked out she seemed.

"Iiyaa..." Noriko's voice was just as quiet, and she backed a few steps further away. "Daijoubu, daijoubu," she muttered, shaking her head sharply. She'd used her powers on another person. A friend. Yes, it had been to help, and it didn't seem to have hurt him, but still... More than anything right now, she wanted a bottle of vodka.

Laurie stood and walked toward Nori slowly, trying not to spook her as she so obviously was already. "Nori, you saved him." she said, hands out, like she might have approached a frightened deer. "What you did, it saved him."

Nori nodded just as sharply. "Shiteru. Daijoubu. Is ok." The obvious lie came out, even as she backed farther away. "Julio daijoubu, Nori mo daijoubu."

Laurie knew it would be easy to just use her power to calm Nori down but what was easy wasn't always what was right. Professor Xavier's ethics class had taught her that much. Just because you could do something, didn't mean you had the right to take someone's free will from them, even when that will wanted them to panic and run away.

"Please, Nori. I need your help, Julio needs your help." Laurie said, tone pleading. "I need someone to watch him, make sure he's okay while I call the Professor."

While he seemed to be only sleeping right now, she didn't want to chance leaving him unobserved for too long. Heart attacks were not anything to fool around with.

Either Laurie's words or her tone seemed to get through to the distraught Japanese girl, because after a second it she refocused, looking at Laurie instead of through her. "Hai..." she said, voice a tad shaky. "Is understand." As she took in a deep breath her face seemed to close down, whatever she was thinking or feeling getting locked away behind her eyes.

Laurie nodded, smiling in relief as Nori seemed to get a little less freaked, or at least wasn't about to run off just yet. She pulled out the cellphone, and checked to see if she had signal. They'd all been given International roaming before they left the US but it was still touch and go at times. Thankfully, the cellphone gods were looking over her today and she had enough signal bars to make a call.

Hopefully Professor Xavier wasn't in a conference, and had his phone turned on.

Without a word, Nori moved to crouch down next to Julio, arms on her bent knees, dark eyes fixed on the boy who'd saved them. Who'd saved the city, and then needed to be saved himself.